I don’t usually write reviews of those latest travel photo gear such as camera or lens when they are just released. I only write something on my experience on using some of those equipment that I own for some period of time. So, you can only read reviews on stuffs like the Panasonic Fz28, Nikon D60, Nikkor 35mm f1.8, Lowepro Cirrus TLZ15 and others that I own and that’s all. There is no exception for this round. I own it, I used it for 90% of my time or nearly 4100 photos taken in Europe recently, and I love it. It is the Tamron AP10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II Ultra Wide Angle (UWA) lens with Nikon mounting. It was launched sometimes in 2008 and still the latest UWA lens for Tamron.

This is how it looks standing alone with the Tamron cover on in front and the mounting cap at the back. Filter size for this lens is pro-size 77mm which is not compatible with my Nikkor’s 52mm. I bought the Hoya HD UV filter to fit in for protection. Quite an expensive protective UV filter at RM250.00 (USD75) per piece though it is claimed to be the best filter around with HD clarity to the image.

I’m not an expert technically so I can comment much on its technical specification. Basically,

1. Zoom range is from 10mm-24mm in small APS-C sensor / DX format (or 15mm-36mm at 35mm Full frame equivalent).
2. Widest aperture range is from f3.5 to f4.5 along the zoom range. Not the fastest UWA lens around.
3. It is much bigger than my Nikkor 18-55mm zoom and 55-200mm zoom, measuring 83mm diameter and 94mm overall length.
4. It has an internal focusing system which means when it focus, the external barrel would rotate. This is good when you fitted a graduated filter or polariser and your fingers would block its way when focusing.
5. Same with Nikkor, it has a switch though to manually overwrite its autofocusing (same with the Nikkor’s MA switch).
6. It weighs around 400g which is hefty in the travel photographer’s hand.
7. Good thing is it has built-in focusing motor (though a bit slow) so it could be used with budget entry level camera such as my Nikon D60 or D3000.
8. Since it was designed for APS-C format DSLR, the lens is not suitable for Full frame format DSLR which will have serious vignetting effect at all corners.
9. Selling Price at the moment is RM1,950.00 or USD590.00 which is the cheapest Ultra Wide Angle lens in the market now.

How it performs in reality? Apart from Fish Eye, it is the widest lens available in the market now at 10mm (Though Sigma is coming out with 8mm very soon). I used it most of the time for 90% of all my 4500 shots on my Europe travel recently. After attaching it to my D60, the combo can still fit nicely into my tiny Lowepro waist bag which is good news. I can carry it easily along my travel. Operation side, Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens is very easy to handle. Grip is firm with it rubber ring for both zooming and manual focusing rings. Resting it onto your palm and zoom it is easy. Only once a while you can mistakenly rotate the focusing ring which is further in front of the zooming ring. However, both rings are fairly tight but still smooth to be rotated. I found this better as it is more resistant to accidentally rotate and mess up the focusing which happened many times with my Nikkor 35mm which also features the internal focusing system with manual focus overwriting.

The images captured with this Tamron SP10-24mm are both bright and sharp. Personally I couldn’t differentiate the sharpness between it and my fixed 35mm f1.8 lens. Color rendering is also good to my expectation. Its zoom range is the widest in its class from 10mm to 24mm focal length in DX format or 15mm to 36mm in 35mm equivalent. If you are wondering how much the lens within its available zoom range can cover, look at both the above and below photo. The above photo was taken with the lens furthest focal length of 24mm while the photo below was shot with its widest 10mm wide angle.

Amazing right? I can either zoom out to capture the whole St. Paul Cathedral or zoom in to to focus on people. It was why I used it most of the time in Europe, except only when I wished to capture portrait or close-up’s.

How about its distortion control? Chromatic Aberration (CA) is very well controlled with it 12 element 9 group of high precision and low dispersion glass. Only very minimum CA was spotted in mostly the high contrast sections of the image. Moreover, barrel distortion is surprisingly low with this ultra wide angle lens especially when you are shooting tall buildings. Vignetting doesn’t exist in all my 4100 photos. Overall, Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens is very good in handling image distortion.

All in all, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di-II is a very good Ultra Wide Angle lens which is best to use for shooting landscape and architecture with lots of straight lines, like the perfect example shown in the above photos.

What about the downside? Tamron SP10-24mm is not good for fast moving objects. Its built-in focusing motor is very slow if compared to other competitors like Sigma. On top of that, f3.5-4.5 maximum aperture is not the fastest around. Other competitors produce faster and fixed aperture UWA lens, though is more expensive.

The last complaint I have with this lens is its ultra wide coverage which could not be coped with most DSLRs’ built-in flash! If you are shooting night scene with this lens and built-in flash on, or if you are shooting close-up objects with flash on, the centre bottom part of your image will appear dark with shadow of the lens itself as the built-in flash light is partly blocked by the large lens! So if you are keen to use UWA lens for night shooting, remember to bring your external flash along which is taller.

Ultra Wide Angle lens is the essential piece of travel photo gear for Europe travel and Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di-II is doing a very good job as an Ultra Wide Angle lens. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog